Cannon Beach OR 04-10-2016

Taking some much needed get away time, Dave and I went to Cannon Beach, OR for the weekend.  Along the way we saw a sign for a covered bridge, so we took a lovely short side trip to this covered bridge.  I got to drive through it!  I noticed there was a rope swing hanging underneath it, but it wasn't warm enough to try it out.

 Cannon Beach is such a pretty mellow town. Lots of shopping, galleries, and of course that huge sandy beach.  We had a pretty view of the ocean out of our hotel window and we could just step outside and go for a wander.  Haystack Rock was a bit south of us, but not too far for a walk.  I spent a lot of my time walking back and forth barefoot over the smooth sand. 

 The weather was cloudy with sunbreaks and warm the whole time. No rain!

I think this was called Tillamook Rock Lighthouse

 I really wanted to see the tufted puffins that are supposed to nest on Haystack Rock. I looked through my zoom until my eyes watered, but only saw the penguin-like common murres, cormorants and gulls. Later when I zoomed in on my photos there were a couple puffins there!  I guess it's kind of cheating to check them off my list since I didn't know I was actually seeing them.  I'll have to go back with something more powerful.

Pair of tufted puffins barely discernable at center

Harlequin Ducks

 There were so many cool things to see on the beach... sand dollars, razor clam and mussel shells, the occasional pretty rock.

Empty Armor

 Another sight along all the tidelines, were these jelly fish.  They are called Velellas and they have a little sail that scoots them all around the ocean.  Sadly sometimes it scoots them up ashore, and they were there by the thousands!  Very pretty and interesting jellies though.

Velella Velella

So many marooned sailor velellas

 The people were interesting too and it was great to see so many of them enjoying such a variety of activities.  Next to sand castle construction, kite flying seemed to be the most popular.

 Here was a different take on sand castles!  I don't know who built it, but later I saw a little kid further down the beach painstakingly trying to construct a cliff dwelling of his own.

 After we left Cannon Beach we went south to check out the Tillamook Cheese Factory. We pulled over first for these pretty views of other rock stacks.

The Tillamook Cheese Factory was not exactly what I expected.  It's basically a huge gift shop/café with a few observation windows from which you can see the cutting and packaging.  It was pretty cool to see so much cheese!  Yum!  And there were samples at the end too.  No savings on cheese in their grocery section either.  I usually pay a couple dollars less by watching for sales at grocery stores.  It wasn't too far out of the way though, and if we had been hungry I've heard the café is excellent.

 To make our way north to Tacoma where we were going to an Iron Maiden concert on our last night, we took some back roads that my phone's map app showed.  What a worthy drive!  We saw tiny little communities up in the hills, gorgeous forests, winding rivers, and these elk that went up the hill when they saw us walking back for photos.  For big animals they moved so quietly- like big ghosts through the trees.  Don't worry- we weren't as close as these photos look and there was a small river in between us.

 There were also pretty wildflowers blooming- trillium and bleeding heart.  I was glad we stopped!

Double Bluff Beach 08-01-15

We have been working on house/yard projects all year getting ready for our outdoor wedding here.  We were married July 11 and although it was one of the only cloudy drippy days of the summer, it was lovely.  Adventure Dog has been going stir crazy with the only hiking being in our yard, so we decided to go somewhere else today. It has been a hot dry sunny summer so if I wanted get any hike in, it would have to be in the morning.  We headed out around 8am and caught the ferry to Whidbey Island.  I got right onto the 1st ferry that was there. 
I had read about where the tides would be and it would be going out until around noon so it was perfect timing to enjoy a sunny morning on the off leash dog beach!  Cedar was super excited to be out meeting dogs, and marking driftwood. 

 

 I hoped to see an eagle and was not disappointed. 

Mount Rainier and Baker were stunning today.  I couldn't see Baker from the beach, but Rainier gleamed like a giant mirage beyond the water.

Wait a minute... does that photo bombing seagull have something in its beak?

Yep!  Looks like a big clam and he's taking it away from the rest of the seagull crew so he can drop it, break it, and eat it all by himself.

The low tide made for some fun tidepooling, and even Cedar waded a few times without any encouragement from me.  He is not a water dog, but realized that it helped cool him off. 

 

Not sure if the crab or the green stripey rock is the coolest thing in this picture!



Cedar caught wading

Barnacles and things make noises and Cedar was surprised and curious

 

The most amazing thing on this little hike though, was that we were treated to our own personal airshow!  A red biplane showed up and just started doing tricks right over our heads!  I didn't even know planes could do some of the things he or she was doing!  Some tricks were done with smoke and some without.  Adventure Dog was busy on the beach, but I couldn't tear my eyes away until the plane completely left.  I got nearly 10 minutes of barrel rolls, corkscrews, loop the loops, and more.  Thank you Mystery Pilot!  That was freaking phenomenal!!

Adventures in Game Cams

So with all the wildlife I've been glimpsing around our home, I was super eager to find out what animals we might see at night or when we're not around being noisy stinky humans.  So my biggest desire for Christmas was a Game Cam.  I got two of them!  Heaven!  : )  I got to work putting them up here and there and bringing them in to see what I've "caught."
The vast majority of my pictures are set-up/take-down and us walking by.  It is too cold and wet to bring my computer out and just take the chip out to download the pics... maybe in the summer... so for now, I remove both cameras from their spots and then set them up again later that day.

This was surprising, as the camera was set out in the water, but the water froze and Cedar went out to investigate.

See the little Cedar face in this one?

Dave, Adventure Dog and I trying out Steve's boat!

Luckily, I am also capturing wildlife!  So far the night shots are a bit blurry, so I will need to read my manuals regarding what settings I should be using.  Sorry for the poor clarity on a lot of these. 
First I was just getting ducks:

"Peek-a-boo!" says a male wood duck.

We'll get you my pretty, and all other female ducks too!

And after all the ducks and all the 'didn't get anything this time' I was super stoked to get a squirrel.  I got his butt one day and then then his better side the next.

Then, just once, we got what we really really wanted to see... a beaver!  He is going by with a stick, but if you don't know what you're looking for it is a bit hard to tell.  We really would like to know if we have more than one. We want our beaver pond to have happy beavers in it, not lonely ones.

I also got a pic of a raccoon this week!  He is super hard to pick out, so I'm putting in a pic without him 1st, so you can see where there is something in the 2nd that there wasn't in the 1st.

Can you see him?  Just left of the middle vertically and almost right in the middle horizontally.. you can just see his face beyond the leaves (he is more faded than the leaves)

And last, but not least... the coyotes.  I got one where I was expecting beavers (near where the raccoon was), and the other(s) were on the woods trail right behind the house.  Hopefully I'll start catching some of these in better lighting so we can see them better!

This one looks like it's heading for an rift between dimensions.

These last two look like they were taken one after the other, but if you notice the time stamp, it was early in the morning on 2 consecutive nights.

And here is Cedar in the same exact spot the coyote was.  Kind of  eerie!

This has been really fun!  Hopefully with warmer weather and more light, there will be more animal activity!